Lexical archaisms in Slavic.

This work examines the etymologies of Slavic lexemes which can be reconstructed back to Nostratic roots. The development of distant linguistic comparison is traced from its origins in the binary comparisons of the nineteenth century to the reconstruction of the Nostratic Theory of Illic-Svityc and Dolgopolsky, whose methodology and results are contrasted with the Nostratic work of Bomhard. Illic-Svityc's etymologies are also contrasted with those of Trubacev and Vasmer for Slavic and of Pokorny for IE. In the vast majority of instances when the etymologies differ, Illic-Svityc's approach is shown to be superior. Information on the distribution of Nostratic roots is also provided for IE and Slavic, which is shown to have a relatively high number of lexical archaisms.Ph.D.LinguisticsAncient languagesSlavic literatureUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162470/1/9013934.pd